Brighton Weekend

Now the sun is beginning to shine, perhaps a weekend in Brighton? Peppermint rock, whelks, kiss-me-quick hats and damp pebbles. Can't beat it!
So, take your camera and get some fill-in snaps for: Running Man, 1963; Street of Shadows, 1953; Tommy, 1975; Villain; Brighton Rock, 1948; Brighton Strangler, 1945; Bank Holiday, 1938; Carry on Girls, 1973; Genevieve, 1954; Hundred Pound Window, 1943; Jigsaw, 1963; Night We Got the Bird, 1961; Oh, What a Lovely War, 1969; Playground Express; Quadrophenia, 1978, and the dozens of more recent films and movies which have used Brighton, Hove and the Sussex seafronts for their filming sets and locations.
Oh, and don't forget to send us a postcard!
Happy hols.

Hammersmith Murders

A copy of Daybreak has just been sent in by R D Marchant, and our thanks to him. Most scenes are sets, and the waterfront shots vary from Hammersmith via Tilbury to Gravesend, most are stock shots without actors, but one or two will be useful for us.

Interestingly the film was made in 1948 in the same place as The Long Memory, 1953, but Daybreak was made by the Hammersmith Riverside Studios, where it is believed Dogsbody, of Cinema of Darkness infamy worked.

Is there a connection we wonder?

An undetected serial killer working in the shadowy world of film production with all the smoke and mirrors at his disposal, and, as for disposal, the bridge and the Thames were close by, and the unresolved mystery of the Gravesend arm, was only twenty miles downstream from the Riverside Studios and Hammersmith Bridge. Five floating hours at 4mph.

Are there any more links to Hammersmith, films made there, or the identity of Dogsbody? Help us to investigate these apparent murders. Examine the Cinema of Darkness and see if you can unravel more of this mystery.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Whilst we realise that it is quicker for you to just write an email, attach a couple of photos and press the button, but at our end the helpers need to know the geographical location in order to find the film quickly, and that is why we have a submission page, or else they need to open our site, ALL FILMS, select and load the full film. Time is running. OK only three or four minutes on our old slow middle Italian internet connection, but time all the same. And when ten of you write in on the same day things can get a bit hectic.

Then when the helper needs to archive your email, where does he put it? He needs to spend time renaming your files with our film ident codes, again one of the reasons why we ask everone to submit only one film at a time. So we need to rename the file, another minute.

It is also a help to us if our picture number is put as the title of your photo file, with an "n" suffix, for "now". Because when we archive the picture we'll never find it again unless we rename it. Only a few minutes work, but with some 15 000 pictures it costs a lot of money. Change the file name, another minute

So, the house, street, village,............... please let us have a full address.

Picture size is another requirement, the physical size and the resolution size, all of which we ask the submitters to do, as it saves us even more time. See submission details. If we have to change both for you, another two minutes of our time..

So yes, we do want your contributions, but as we are unloved and unpaid we must ask your help in doing the preparatory work so that our time can be more profitably used to enlarge the site and give greater pleasure to greater numbers of enthusiasts, instead of spending even more time asking contributors yet again to follow our submission rules, and sending out endless emails to constantly ask them to submit their details and photos in an acceptable condition.

So, we've could have tweaked your pic, making it brighter and a tad more contrasty, two minutes. And now written this email, three/four minutes. Ten minutes just to add one picture!!! So in that time we can add 10 other pics that have been correctly submitted by other people.

And is it your photo or does the copyright belong to someone else? Let us know so that we, with your help, don't infringe someone else's copyright.

And as for the out of focus, dark, blurry pics, and those that don't correspond with anything..............words fail me

Thanks, hope you really can be of help to us, as we hope we are being of help to you.

Best wishes

John Tunstill

EALING STUDIOS

I've lived in Ealing all my life and could spend all my time identifying
locations in loads of films and TV series.

Carry on Constable - In fact it was shot around 100yds further down
St Mary's Rd from co001, on the other side of the road and facing south.
South Ealing station is on the other side of the road. At the time of the
film it was on the far side of the bridge over the railway and has since
been rebuilt on the near side.

co003 are incorrect in some respect. The original caption was correct
in placing the shot opposite West Ealing Station.
However West Ealing Station is on Drayton Green Road not
Drayton Bridge Rd as claimed. The corrected caption is also wrong.
Argyle Rd only begins after the junction with Manor Road at the far
end of the bridge.

In Hue and Cry when the boys are mobilised, the boys on the
ice cream bikes all pour out (Pics anyone?) of The Grove, Ealing onto
St Mary's Road, the corner they go around is about 100
yards across Ealing Green from the entrance to Ealing Studios.
This corner featured in the recent looting in Ealing
when the roof of the building on the corner went up in flames.

I suspect the house where the gang hide out in Hue and Cry is
in the same area behind Ealing Broadway as was used for
Inspector Morse's house and may be also be used in Lewis.

(Any clues anyone?)

Michael Adams

And there is a pub in Ealing High Street, called the Basil Dearden. A pint anyone?

Tourist Offices

To all film location enthusiasts

Please note that despite offering various local tourist authorities
FREE publicity on our site,
which attracts some 3.5 million hits a year, and asking for nothing in return,
our offer has been ignored. They are obviously too busy to promote
their areas to our surfers.

The incumbents in the office are obviously unaware of the power of
film-induced-tourism and the millions of pounds spent each year by these
visitors to film location sites throughout the world.

So, if you were thinking of offering free publicity to Bolton, Manchester,
Liverpool, Camden and Hammersmith, probably best you don’t waste your time.
Our offer was a free "plug" on each and every film that was
shot in and around their area that is contained on our site; but no,
they don’t want our help.

They have, obviously, too many tourists.

John Tunstill

The Games

When we started ReelStreets we concentrated on films with identifiable locations made in the British Isles. But because of world wide interest we have opened the site up to feature films and movies made anywhere, as well as the popular TV series. Checking back we find that The Games, a film made by Michael Winner in 1970, had a number of foreign location scenes, Tokio, Sydney, Rome and probably Belgium, all of which we have now added. So, next time you visit take a snap.

Secret of Santa Vittoria

Secret of Santa Vittoria, with Anthony Quinn, Anna Magnani and Hardy Kreuger, filmed on location in Anticoli Corrado, Lazio, Italy, a bit to the north east of Rome. Wonderful period film full of shouting over-acting Italians, with the whole village acting as extras. The Germans; Hardy Kreuger was the commander, or even the Kommandante; a small group of retreating Axis forces after the invasion of Italy by the Allies, and the fall and execution of Mussolini.

Filmed, it would appear, entirely in the main square of Anicoli Corrado, this location provides the ideal reason for an outing from Rome, use the film as an excuse for a bit of film induced tourism and escape the crowds in the Vatican, Michaelangelo, Don Camillo and the Da Vinci Code, the mobs around Piazza Navona, Dolce Vita, the multitudes on the Spanish Steps, Roman Holiday, Talented Mr Ripley, Blue Murder at St Trinians and many others.

Head east for a taste of destination marketing, which was a term invented long after the film was made, for the art or science of creating reasons why tourists and travellers would visit a specific location, or destination. Make the film and the local community benefits from the influx of the film’s technicians, actors, and producers, and once the film is made, if the world is informed about its locations, then the ongoing trickle of tourists for the next hundred years will bring in a steady stream of cash to local businesses.